And It Begins Like This
by that lionhearted vagabond
Summary: Clearly, she decides, he's stalking her.


**The age old question of how James and Lily got together.**

_**And It Begins Like This**_

It's the summer after her sixth year that it all begins.

She's sitting on her porch sipping strawberry lemonade when he walks by, he's whistling merrily with his thumbs hooked through the back pockets of his muggle jeans.

He smiles when he sees her, apparently he was in the neighborhood and decided to stop by for a visit, she arches an eyebrow at him because she's slightly alarmed that he knows where she lives and extraordinarily suspicious about the fact that he, a prominent pure-blood, is in her neighborhood, a muggle neighborhood. Clearly, she decides, he's stalking her.

When he asks if she wants to go get an ice cream he's expecting a no, she can tell, but she's so desperate for magic company, or any company really, that she surprises him. She rolls her eyes and tells him she's just got to grab her coat.

Even though it's summer it's an overcast day and there's a slight breeze and she gets cold _very_ easily, he knows this, -he always saves her a seat right by the fire in the common room, and offers her his sweatshirt, she always declines but he keeps offering anyway- so he just nods and beckons for her to go grab it, biting back the wisecrack he would have delivered if it were anyone else.

She leads him to a small diner a couple blocks away, he gets a vanilla ice cream, she gets a hot chocolate. The waitress, a young blonde girl, gives her a funny look but he just looks at her like they're sharing an inside joke. They're not, but she's grateful for the look anyway because she doesn't have to answer.

The cycle repeats itself the next day, except he drops all pretenses of just randomly being in her neighborhood and they actually talk as he licks his cone and she sips from her mug.

Maybe it's because she doesn't really have anyone else to talk to, -her parents don't really _get_ her world, or by extent her, and the idea of Tuney willingly saying anything not insulting to her is laughable- but she almost enjoys it.

He tells her that he's not really talking to Sirius at the moment, or the rest of his mates really, and she tells him that she doesn't really have any mates. The girls in her dorm never really liked her, because mudblood or not she might as well be a Slytherin with her snake-loving ways, and everyone else is too scared to be seen with someone like _her_ nowadays.

The cycle repeats itself.

He tells her that he can't stop arguing with his mother about his love life and his father about his career, and she tells him that her father is never home and her mother always sides with Petunia because she's hurt and jealous enough as it is and apparently she's read enough parenting books to know that attempting to remain neutral would drive Petunia away, most of her mother's opinions come from parenting books.

She can't say she's surprised when she sees the Head Boy badge sticking out of his pocket, he always does what you least expect of him, and she certainly wouldn't have pinned him for Head Boy material, then again she wouldn't have pinned herself for Head Girl material either.

After the prefect meeting she sits in his compartment, because as familiar she is with loneliness she still doesn't really enjoy it.

Remus tactfully hides his shock, Peter doesn't, and Sirius- who is apparently back on speaking terms with him- simply raises one eyebrow, -the comment he might once of made hidden behind his stoic gaze because he doesn't really know where his boundaries are, maybe because he's never had boundaries before,- she just rolls her eyes and opens her book.

He confiscates it seconds later and puts it on the luggage rack high above her head, she could summon it if she wanted, but his company is better than her book, so she doesn't.

They get along well enough now, and when he offers her his sweatshirt she wears it, if only on patrols for the sake of the little pride she has left, -people whisper insults at her wherever she goes and there's mud on all her stuff,-and he refrains from gloating about progress.

When he asks her if she wants to get an ice cream with him on the first Hogsmeade trip of the year, -although where they'd get _ice cream_ in _Hogsmeade_ in _November_ is not disclosed,- she says yes.

And she was wrong because _that's_ when it all begins.

**Experimenting with a new writing style, reviews would be appreciated if you'd be so obliged.**


End file.
